It’s no surprise that 2020 is predicted to have the busiest online holiday shopping season in history. Recent reports show a “once-in-a-generation” boom of entrepreneurship during the pandemic, with more new business applications filed than ever before. This, combined with the amount of brick-and-mortar retailers shifting to eCommerce, sets the stage for increased online shopping activity compared to previous years. 

So how can brands stand out among new and existing competitors?

One way is through optimizing your Facebook advertising strategy. Each year, the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) experiences a spike in Q4 as brands hone in on Black Friday and holiday shoppers. Here are 5 tips to help you prepare your Facebook BFCM ads for a successful weekend:

Plan ahead

Start early to build in time for retargeting audiences and testing your ads. For your day-of Black Friday promotions, a good rule of thumb is to schedule your campaigns at least 48 hours beforehand to ensure they get approved in time.

Prepare your budget and select your audiences

Ads are more expensive around the holidays. There’s no magic number for ad spend, so look at your current ad spend, see what’s working, and ramp it up. One strategy to increase ad spend is by basing it off the percentage growth in last year’s BFCM sales. To select your audience, consider the demographics of your existing customers and see what they may be interested in. It may take a few tests to find audiences that click.

Because retargeting usually costs less and has higher conversion rates than new audiences, it’s important to advertise to new audiences in the weeks leading up to BFCM, while ad prices are still low. When BFCM rolls around and ad prices climb, these audiences can then be retargeted for lower ad prices.

Design strong creatives and write compelling copy

When designing Facebook ads, make them relevant for your target audience. Make sure that your copy and visual assets are complementary, and have a clear call-to-action. Keep your ads fresh to fight creative fatigue. You can delay this by expanding your audience, but the better alternative is to have additional assets prepared in advance. These updated assets will also increase the relevance score of your ads.Test between images, videos, and carousels ahead of time to see which are most effective. Run each ad until you have enough impressions to be statistically significant and find out which format has the highest conversion rate or engagement. You can also A/B test between different copy, images, etc.

Select an enticing discount

Consumers look forward to Black Friday for the discounts. One tactic to offset high advertising costs is by increasing your average order value. To do so, set a minimum purchase amount before the discount applies.

One way to ensure you’re optimizing your discount is by testing various offers with a smaller audience leading up to Black Friday, and seeing which ones have the highest click-through rate.

Follow up with your Black Friday customers

One-time purchasers are great but long-term customers are even better. Since new customers are more expensive to acquire, have a strategy in place to keep Black Friday shoppers in the loop. Ensure they’re added to your email list and follow-up with relevant content, products, and updates to keep them interested in the long run.

Most importantly, continue to test and monitor your Facebook ads. Advertising is not one-size-fits-all. It’s essential to keep track of your different audiences and campaigns, see what’s working, and adjust to ensure you’re getting the highest return on investment.